


If I Told You

by S_IRIS



Series: The Good Wife, The Bad Wife [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Assassins & Hitmen, Backstory, Bad Parenting, F/M, Falling In Love, Mary is Moran, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-18 02:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2332088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_IRIS/pseuds/S_IRIS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sort of Mary and John's relationship unravelling from before their first date, and her own incompletely told story in flashbacks</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Told You

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, I think that Mary is probably the most complicated canon character now, well, apart from Mycroft maybe, because her past and her reasons are still in the dark. So I just took this on as a writing exercise sort of thing. . .

She looks at him. She never knew it was possible to feel guilty.

Every time he strides into the little general hospital, he has a good morning smile ready on his face. The sort of smile that Mona Lisa gives to the rest of the world. It is said that when Da Vinci first drew the model's portrait, she wasn't smiling at all. It took him generations to create a facade of a smile using brushwork over the humourless lady's portrait.

Such is the way Mary relates to Dr. Watson.

You might think he's smiling at the first glance, yes, you can see his eyes crinkled up in that polite little smile of his. But when you continue to stare at him, at one point, you see that his eyes are dead after all.

Mary knows. She's heard all about Sherlock Holmes. She's seen him for real once or twice, or maybe multiple times. She'd seen two men, best friends, mates, forever for life giggling as they walked out of the crime scene, one the criminal and other the detective back then. She hadn't been concerned about the companion then.

_We train agents to collect information here in the CIA, not to blow things up as they please!_

Now, that man is her boss. She tries not to think about her other boss back then.

_I'm going to call you Moran. Abigail is too old fashioned and. . . too Republican for me._

Mary sometimes wonders how it would feel, keeping her palm over the piece of skin under which Dr. Watson keeps his heart. Would it be a _lub-dub_ , beat the way normal humans' hearts do? Because she has never known kindness in her life. Cannot expect things like kindness from a man who to whom fate has been so cruel.

She's read his files, memorised them as she travelled down those narrow corners of her mind, the beginnings of her own Mind Cottage. For her, it was always the Mind Cottage, winding paths among green, golden fields, fields with the wind in the hair, with the scent of hay, of sunshine, of blood.

_Gail. . . look at me. . ._

Of betrayal. Of loss.

Afghanistan veteran, wounded in action. . . she knows, bleeding into foreign land, crimson trickling down, the sand suspended in it. She knows it all. She's given it all away too. Like for Queen and country, she's given it away for three letters: a C, an I and an A.

_There's goodness and badness in everybody._

She believed that. She saw that. John Watson was an exception. In him, the good and bad weren't at war with each other. They were the two sides of the same coin.

_Look. . . into. . . look into. . . my eyes. . ._

John Watson, the captain, the healer, the injurer, the murderer, her boss, walks in and goes into his office. Mary instinctively rushes in to get him his coffee, With a curt nod, she's inside.

"No sugar, sir," she says. His eyes are marvellously transparent today, betraying the depth of him. He gives her a stiff nod.

"Thank you, Mary." He smiles, tender, their fingers lightly brushing for the briefest of breaths. Their eyes meet.

She sees what Sherlock Holmes must have seen in that man.

* * *

Sometimes, when she's alone in her single BHK flat, when she's curled up in her bed, she sees shadows fall across the wall, the honking of late vehicles drifting past the hibernating city, because the city never sleeps, Mary is not asleep.

Her fingers don't tremble, she stares at something that is way beyond the room, something way beyond the sanity of a man's mind, let alone a woman. Yes, that's what she is, was. Woman. Girl. Cannot play with Batman, cannot be Batman, have narrow waists, are well-mannered and civil and graceful.

 _They study language, household, cows. . . don't go as far as science, corrupts the minds of young ladies,_ was what her mother used to say.

She never called her Mary, because that is not what her name is. Mary is a sacred name, her mother would never taint it by giving it away to her daughter. Abigail, was what she had been christened as, but that was what the Father had chosen, not she, for it meant _my father's joy_ according to the Hebrew Bible. Mary knows the whole Bible by heart. She chose the name Mary only to spite her late mother, because when she would crane her neck up from Hell, she would see her daughter polluting the Virgin's name.

And she would burn in there. Out of rage. Out of fury. Out of helplessness. For her sins. Oh, she would. And she would face the same when she would join her mother there. For her mother was not a person who could be incinerated that easily. Her sins wouldn't be absolved like that.

It's times like this when John Watson comes to her mind. Her surveillance was over the day she came to know that Jim had committed suicide. Jim always did that, never told her his plans, always acted on impulse. Yet, she had chosen to watch over him like a sentinel.

It gave her peace, like a balm to her frenzied mind. Watching him in his new flat, drinking Scotch and watching an awkward video made by his deceased flatmate on the event of his birthday. He's moved out of Baker Street, of course. He moved out within a week of his flatmate's death. Out of sight, but not out of mind.

She couldn't even associate herself with this man. They were nothing similar in ideas. They might have shared a similar kind of history. He was a war veteran, a hero, honourably discharged from Army, turned blogger to the world's only consulting detective. She, an ex-CIA special agent, betrayed, most wanted over more than 20 states in the United States of America. Only her name known to them.

A.G. RA.

Nothing more. Jim had erased all traces of her records. She exists only in the "Most Wanted" posters where she doesn't have a face, only a nondescript name.

_Special Agent Abigail Gabaldon. . ._

She has no traces of that life. Except memories, that arise when she's asleep, but she knows how to control her life, control her dreams.

_. . . we've called this meeting here to investigate the death of Special Agent Pierre Osborne. Cause of death: a bullet in the abdomen. . ._

Her fingers slip under the t-shirt she's wearing, and they travel and linger over the braised skin, jutting, knotted flesh. She remembers the bite of those ants, bleeding into foreign sand, with nothing to stitch herself up with, except for the shearing jaws of ants.

_Dorylus gribodoi._

The spidery light floods into the dark room. The dark was an old friend of her, her only companion during those infinitely long waiting periods, the most reliable sort of co-conspirator.

 _Miss Gabaldon,_ they had called her Miss Gabaldon, forgotten in a second the years of service that she had put in, the years that had earned her the title Special Agent.

. _. . you're temporarily relieved from active service in the light of several inquiries. . ._

She had given those bastards everything, every waking moment of her life had been dedicated to gathering HUMINT. She had killed people for them. She had got herself shot and bitten by fucking safari ants because of it. She had worked 24x7 during the 9/11 attacks. She had lost her virginity to a perverted old Russian prick just so she could steal a couple of missile plans. all for her Work, her job. And they had disposed her away.

_Nothing remains forever._

She traces her appendix scar. She begs to differ.

_Take her away. . ._

 

 

Now, John Watson. There's a man who can make the hairs on the nape of her neck stand up in attention. Tender hands, bruised hands, calloused hands, careful all the same. How many bombs has he touched? How many men has he killed? How many fires has he put out with his bare hands?

She sees, but doesn't know what.

Respectable man, staunch Briton, eats poached eggs, baked beans and toast for breakfast, never stopped being a healer. Never stopped being a soldier. Good and bad.

Light and dark.

* * *

She's sitting outside, he's inside his office. He hasn't buzzed the intercom for ages. Dr. Sawyer assures her that she'll take some action. Mary's eyes flicker to Dr. Sawyer talking to the receptionist. Making eyes at the door bearing the nameplate of Dr. Watson, M.D. MBBS. She's read his files, she's read his Curriculum Vitae. Graduated from King's College, went away to RAMC. She knows beyond that too. One can almost call it a schoolgirl crush. It's been ages since she got to be this schoolgirl at all.

Mary smiles at her colleague, makes small talk with her on the lovely colour of her lipstick. Her eyes still on John's door. There's not a sound. She wonders if Dr. Watson is okay.

"John?" The nurse tells her that Dr. Sawyer and Dr. Watson went out once; less than a year later, she left him because they weren't working out. Couldn't work out. Something to do with pain-in-the-hinder flatmate. Mary notes, files this information in her mind to a temporary repose till she can find a more permanent place for it or till she can delete it.

"John?" Dr. Sawyer's voice turns up a notch, and Mary rises. This isn't a part of her job. This isn't a part of herself. But she cares. She would've done the same if it was anybody else. But more so for Dr. Watson.

She had been offered a house overlooking the beach in Santa Monica, an annual pay of hundred thousand dollars and a full week's Emperor's Package in Caesar's Palace if she cooperated with them, and helped them track down the various "secret terrorist organisations" that she had been in contact with, back when she had been held in Bedford.

It had all been rubbish back then. She had no terrorist affiliations or sympathies. She had not been involved in the 9/11 disaster. Still, she could've been chosen that life, go for revenge instead of business.

 

But she chose this.

 

"Dr. Watson?" She calls out, "Get Frank." She tells another nurse.

The door is closed from inside; despite the banging, John isn't responding.

When the door is broken open, Dr. Watson is in the middle of an epileptic seizure. The darkness plays across his face, hide and seek with light. Here, there is no doctor, no healer, only the injured and the murderer, the soldier and the brutal attack.

They rush forward, turn him to his side, tear away the cardigan from his body. It is all over in a flash. Dr. Watson's breathing is still ragged, his eyes are out of focus. Mary, she's seen seizures, has never had a seizure but it was like she could feel it. John is not yet conscious, but his breathing is laboured, a little spluttery, and then he almost chokes on his own saliva. He tries to get up, not used to being weak.

Still the soldier. Still fighting against the belief that his commander is dead. Left him.

Mary hasn't done anything. She still feels guilty. She never knew it was possible to feel something as extraneous as that.

* * *

After his medication, and a lots of _are you okay_ and sorts, Mary sees him coming closer, to sign his day off. She pretends to be busy with something or other, files and folders. He glances at her, picks up the ballpoint pen and writes his name. She turns. The back of his knuckles ripple as his hand draws close. The scars there are so numbered that they have become a mesh of fading lines.

The most prominent is near his forefinger, short and fat, due to scraping against a rough surface, such as a wall. Self-inflicted, then. Seven years in age. Something during the war, then, something that made him so enraged that he felt the desire to dull the emotion through physical pain. The soldier has felt a lot of pain. The doctor has lost a lot. He has blood on his hands, too much blood to be cleansed by simple motions of happiness and stains of tea in the carpet.

"Right," he announces as he straightens up after having made his signature, "I'm off." She realises, it might be her one time she can.

"Wait! John . . . Dr. Watson—"

"Call me John," he insists, the stiffness still not leaving his frame. She nods, standing. She can't believe it. She's a hell of a flirter, she's cheeky, she's smart, she can bed almost any man she wants.

Not Dr. Watson though. His regard has to be earned, deliberately, with patience. He has trust issues.

"Well, John. . ." she tries the name on her lips consciously for the first time as he watches her patiently. There's that again, his face. It's non-judgmental, not bland, just plain kind, like he has a obligation to be kind to everybody in the world.

"If you're just going to ask me whether I'm fine—" he begins, but Mary cuts across him.

"No, not that," she shakes her head, "I mean, in a way, yes, but—"

"I don't need you apologizing for something that you didn't do," he says in a low voice. Damn, it's difficult, but it's just coffee. And it's so sudden and out of context and so not right today. She's been planning this for days, told Janine about this, about Dr. Hot stuff and Janine had giggled and said _Yes, of course you should ask him out, you big loon!_ and now she's here and she's so inexplicably nervous. Why did the seizure have to happen today, and how can he still look so okay after all that?

"I'm not apologizing. Or maybe I could, over a coffee?"

_Highway no. 9, in eight minutes. Target is armed, travelling in a black limo, bulletproof. You have a minute before he crosses the US-Mexico border._

She knows it's lame. She's smooth, always, she's sexy and smart and funny. She's not a schoolgirl. Dr. Watson looks taken aback.

"Wow, I didn't, I mean," he checks his watch, "it's too late, and I um—"

Great, she willed herself to look unaffected, and now. . .

"Maybe tomorrow, 7 o'clock, Starbucks, two streets away from this . . . place?" He nods, and for a split second, she just stares at him, and he just stares at her.

They burst into suppressed giggles. Captain John Watson, always in charge, always two steps ahead. "Sure. But I'm not sure who's asking out who anymore."

John sobers up, "Neither am I." He holds the eye-contact with her for longer than she had anticipated, and then tucks his arms behind his back, nods stiffly as the smile on her face grows into something that's cheekier, more her.

She has a date tomorrow.

John Watson turns away, all military posture, arms by his side, stiff back, chin up, extremely sure of himself.

_Congratulations on your last hit. An amount of twenty one thousand will be delivered to you at your place of choice. Your next job is taped under the phone. You have 36 hours to complete the task and send us the photo of the dead man as confirmation._

Her heart positively soars at the sight of him.

**Author's Note:**

> I might continue this series based on the response, so. . . review?


End file.
